Chapter 15
The phone light illuminates my face as I sit on the balcony, working through my third beer and the twentieth email of the evening.
So far, all but one have been bullshit.
I swipe down.
Delete. Delete. Delete.
I take another swig of my beer and open the next one.
From: C. Masters
Subject: Commitment
Zach,
If I didn’t make it clear on the phone yesterday, I’ll make it clear now.
Get your ass on the next flight to Rome, or I’m benching you for the first five games.
You’re sitting on a $40 million contract, and you’re not here with the rest of the team. That’s not how leaders act.
You are the face of this franchise for the foreseeable future, and your teammates are watching how you handle yourself. They see where you are. They see what you’re doing.
Right now, it doesn’t look like the guy I told ownership was worth betting the future on.
So you have two options.
You can keep doing whatever the hell you’re doing and start the season from the sideline., or you can get on a plane, get back here, and remind everyone why you’re the quarterback of this team.
Your move.
Coach
I rub my face, sighing, knowing he’s going to kill me when he finds out I’ve been rescheduling sponsorship meetings to be out here. I’m contractually obligated to those and could face some serious repercussions for missing them.
How did I get here?
I got everything I thought I wanted. The NFL. The starting position. The contract that set me and my family up for life. I made sure Tiff and Ella were taken care of, got them a house, helped Jamie get settled, and made sure they'd never have to worry about money again.
I did it all. Checked every box. Lived the dream.
Now I’m sitting on a cruise ship, chasing a girl who doesn’t want me, wondering what the hell it was all for.
I really fucked this up, didn’t I?
I stare at Coach’s message and read it a few more times.
I know what I have to do.
To: C. Masters
Subject: RE: Commitment
Coach,
Booking a flight out tomorrow morning from Nassau. I'll be in Rome by tomorrow night. Won't make any more excuses for the time I missed. I'll work to earn—
I stop typing the second Honey’s balcony door opens.
Shit.
I should go inside, but I’m a heavy motherfucker, and if I move, she’ll hear the chair screech across the floor.
Holding my breath, I hear her footsteps as she pads across her balcony, only seeing a tiny glimpse of her hair because the partition blocks most of my view.
I clench my hands together, stopping myself from doing something stupid like reaching forward and running my fingers through the strands.
Not fucking stalker behavior at all...
She stands there for a minute, her shoulders rising and falling with her breath.
I swear I hear it hitch.
Don’t move. Don’t go over there and be the savior.
That’s when her shoulders start shaking, and fuck, my resolve is being tested right now. My poor Honeycomb is still broken, and I’m just like everyone else. Watching.
Before I can move from my chair, she turns, catching my eye immediately.
“Oh,” she lets out in a little squeal.
I push my chair back. “I’m sorry. I’ve been out here for a while. I would’ve moved and gone inside, but you were—”
I don’t finish that sentence, knowing it will hurt her even more if I admit I saw her crying.
She takes a deep breath, wipes her eyes, and smiles. It’s not genuine, though. No. I know her real one. This is the one she uses to placate her family, and the people around her.
“No problem.” Her voice cracks. I pretend not to notice. She flits her hand in my direction. “You stay there. I’m just going to sit over here anyway.”
She backs away from the partition, and even though I can't see her, I hear her settle into the chair on the other side.
Well, this is awkward. Should I go inside and leave her to cry—or do whatever she was planning on doing—alone?
Probably. I don’t, though. She told me to stay here, and I’ll do anything she tells me to.
I settle back into my chair, and we sit there in silence for a moment, separated by a four-foot divider.
My phone buzzes with a message, and before I can turn it off, it starts to ring. Dave’s name flashes on the front, and I quickly divert the call, not wanting to talk to him right now.
“You’re popular tonight,” she says with this sad edge to her voice.
“It’s my agent. I’ve got a few things I need to deal with.” I silence my phone and toss it onto the small table next to my beer. “They can all wait until morning, though.”
The waves crash against the boat, and for a few minutes, it’s all we listen to.
“Does it ever bother you?” she asks.
“What? My phone? Yeah. I swear I put it on silent all the time and it still-”
“No,” she laughs lightly, and just hearing it eases my chest a little. “I meant the attention?”
“Oh.” My brows raise as I consider it for a second. I stare up at the stars and rest my hands on my chest. “It bothers the hell out of me.”
It's the truth, which is all Honey deserves.
“Because of the pressure?”
“No.” I laugh, staring down at my hands now. “Because it cost me the one thing I’ve always wanted... and I’d give all of it back just to have her again.”
Silence.
Well, shit.
I did it again, didn't I?
I run a hand through my hair, knowing that’s something I should’ve kept to myself. Drew’s right. Self-restraint is fucking hard when she’s around.
She huffs out a quiet breath, clearly no longer buying my declarations.
“But you still want to play football, right?” she asks quietly.
“Well, yeah.” I pick up the cardboard coaster that says 'Drink up. You can’t get lost if you’re already at sea.' and fiddle with it. “It’s the one thing I know how to do well. It keeps me going and it takes care of my family. I don’t know what I’d do without it.”
“That’s what I thought,” she says. Her voice doesn’t break or sound sad, though. Probably because she accepted this as my reality a long time ago. I’m just taking a few more seconds to catch up.
“Doesn’t change the fact that I hate what it did to you. To us,” I emphasize.
“I do, too, but knowing that doesn’t change my feelings.”
She’s getting defensive now, and I get it. Everyone is pushing her for an answer she doesn't have yet.
“I didn’t say that to make you feel bad.” I tip my head back, annoyed that nothing feels like it comes out right when I talk to her these days. “I’m just done pretending the trade-off wasn’t real.”
“I never pretended it wasn’t,” she says quietly. “It just didn’t change anything.”
I shake my head, more at myself than her. “Yeah, I’m starting to realize that,” I mutter.
My fingers tap against the arm of the chair.
“I just wish I’d figured it out before it cost me you.”
“I saw you on the pool deck,” she says, not-so-subtly changing the subject, “with those two girls the other day.”
“You did? So much for trying to be incognito.”
“Kind of hard to do when you’re wearing bright yellow bee shorts.”
I laugh quietly. “Good point.”
“It looked like you handled it well.”
“Thanks, but they weren’t asking for my number if that’s what you think. They just wanted to talk football. One of them was a big Raptors fan.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I think it’s different now. The girls at St. Michael’s, well.
..” I trail off since she knows exactly what it was like.
“I just wish I knew how to handle myself better while we were there. Then maybe you would’ve—” I stop.
There’s no point rehashing things that have already happened. “Doesn’t matter.”
She doesn’t answer. In fact, she sits there so quietly, I almost think she’s gone inside.
When she clears her throat, I know that she’s going to come out with some half-assed apology and I don’t want her apologizing for doing what’s right for her.
So I quickly start.
“I get it now, though.”
“Get what?” she asks, somewhat surprised.
“You weren’t running away from me,” I say. “You were trying to get somewhere. I just kept planting myself in the middle of the road thinking I was helping.”
I sit up a little more in my seat.
“Every time you tried to take a step forward, there I was with another grand gesture, giving you another reason to look at me instead of where you were going.” I exhale.
“I thought if I just showed up enough times, you’d eventually stop leaving.
Didn’t occur to me that showing up was the reason you kept having to. ”
“Zach—”
“I’m not looking for you to make me feel better about it. I’m just saying I get it. Finally. Embarrassingly late, but I get it.”
Her beautiful, carefree smile from yesterday comes to mind after the zip line, and I smile sadly to myself.
“You’re going to be amazing at whatever you decide to do, Honey.” My breath is shaky because I’m doing it. I’m finally admitting everything out loud. “If you decide you want to write, you’re going to be an amazing writer.”
“You don’t know that,” she says dismissively.
“I do, because the way you talk about things. You don’t just say them, Honey...you make them stay with people. You’re going to write something that floors everyone, and it’ll prove every asshole who didn’t believe in you wrong. You’ve always been worth more than they ever saw.”
“Zach—”
“Let me finish.” I take a deep breath. “I want that for you more than anything, Honey. I want you to be happy because I love you more than anything.” I keep picking at my chair.
“That’s what I needed eighteen months to figure out.
That loving you doesn’t mean keeping you.
It means making sure you’ve got enough room to become whoever you’re supposed to be. ”
The silence stretches.
I should leave it there. That was a good line. Mature. Evolved. The kind of thing the new, improved Zach Evans is supposed to say and then shut the hell up.
Instead, I hear myself add, “Just do me one favor.”
“What?”
“Try not to find yourself with Chris fucking Harper.”
There it is. The part of me I'll never fully grow out of. I can practically hear her roll her eyes through the partition.
“Zach.”